


More To Life Than This

by RushingHeadlong



Series: October Drabbles [9]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 09:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushingHeadlong/pseuds/RushingHeadlong
Summary: For the most part, Jim is simply grateful for the happiness that they’ve managed to find together.Sometimes, though… Sometimes Jim justwants.
Relationships: Jim Hutton/Freddie Mercury
Series: October Drabbles [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982713
Kudos: 27





	More To Life Than This

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted by request, title from "There Must Be More To Life Than This".
> 
> Obviously this is a work of fiction. I make no claim that this is at all representative of their actual thoughts or feelings, it was just written to soothe the angst in my own gay little heart.

Jim doesn’t think about it often. Tries not to, anyway. He has Freddie in the ways that matter most - in his bed, and in his heart, and in the quiet life they’ve built together at Garden Lodge. Freddie wears his ring and when they’re surrounded only by friends they don’t have to pretend to be something they’re not. That’s more than many people get to have and, for the most part, Jim is simply grateful for the happiness that they’ve managed to find together. 

Sometimes, though… 

Sometimes Jim just _wants._

Jim wants to hold hands with Freddie while they walk in the park. He wants to kiss him while they’re out shopping, and when someone compliments his jacket he wants to say, “Thanks, my husband bought it for me.” He wants Freddie to _really_ be his husband, with all the legal frills and fancies that that entails. 

He wants to be the one on Freddie’s arm during appearances and events, and sometimes he hates Mary so much for taking that position instead that it almost makes him sick with envy. 

Sometimes he hates Queen for putting Freddie into a spotlight that he can never get away from, never mind that Freddie wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Sometimes he almost hates Freddie for putting the band first, for protecting their image at the cost of lying about himself, when Jim knows that the rest of Queen has never, and would never, ask him to do that. 

Sometimes, Jim just hates himself. He wishes he could be more like the activists who are desperately fighting for queer liberation, but he’s not. He’s too cautious, too scared of drawing attention to their little safe haven at Garden Lodge - too afraid of destroying his own safety net to help those without one at all. 

He doesn’t talk about it with Freddie, though. He doesn’t have to. He knows that Freddie feels the same way, even as he has an arm around Mary, even as he gives coy answers to reporters about his relationship, because when they get home at the end of the night he feels Freddie’s frustration and yearning in his too-sharp kisses, in the hands that grip a little too tightly, in the bruises they leave on hips and thighs to carry as hidden reminders of what they really have together in the moments when they need to pretend to be nothing more than friends.

Maybe one day they won’t have to hide, but for now Jim whispers his love against Freddie’s skin in the quiet hours of the morning and pretends that that’s enough.


End file.
